Second mariachi opera plays in Waukegan, Chicago
The creative forces behind the world's first mariachi opera are at it again.
"El Pasado Nunca se Termina" ("The Past is Never Finished") debuts at three venues in Chicago and Waukegan this month, re-teaming director/librettist Leonard Foglia and composer Jose "Pepe" Martinez, who had previously collaborated in 2010 on "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna" ("To Cross the Face of the Moon").
"Two years ago when we did 'Cruzar la Cara de la Luna,' we only gave one performance in the opera house and it was completely sold out, so this time with 'El Pasado' we'll be giving two performances," said Lyric general director Anthony Freud, who originally commissioned "Cruzar" for world-famous mariachi troupe Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán when he was running Houston Grand Opera.
Freud didn't want "Cruzar" to be just a one-off novelty, so he approached Foglia and Martinez to collaborate again. This time the piece is for the Lyric Opera of Chicago's "Lyric Unlimited" initiative, which has an outreach component for "people of multiple backgrounds, ethnicities and interests."
"Anthony's first impulse with this was that this was a musical form that was worth putting on the stage for telling stories operatically," Foglia said. "I realized that there are so many stories to tell."
Foglia wanted the story of "El Pasado" to be original like "Cruzar," so he revisited the whole of Mexico's history before he settled on the appearance of Haley's Comet on the eve of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.
"El Pasado" is set in Morelos, Mexico, where the son of a wealthy landowner with a European heritage falls in love with a humble servant girl from an indigenous background living on his family's hacienda. The story also connects to present-day Chicago, touching upon Foglia's desire to write a piece that looks at the "connections we have with the people who come before us."
"The whole hacienda system at the time is very similar to the plantation system in the United States - that whole dynamic and that whole class world is interesting to me," Foglia said.
In "El Pasado," there are singers from both the mariachi and operatic worlds. Returning from "Cruzar" is mariachi singer Vanessa Alonzo, who plays the mother, Juana.
"This is just like me being my mom on stage," Alonzo said, laughing at how her character overly treasures her son while bossing her daughter around. "It's a beautiful opportunity to be involved with so many talented singers."
Alonzo is also happy to be performing alongside Sebastien E. de la Cruz, who plays the boy Daniel. The 13-year-old mariachi singer from San Antonio, Texas, is famous not only for TV appearances on "America's Got Talent" in 2012, but also for singing the national anthem before games three and four of the NBA Championships in 2013.
At that time, De la Cruz faced a lot of anti-immigrant and racist abuse online, despite the fact that he's an American citizen. But the media debate also made Foglia aware of De la Cruz, so he sought him out to appear in the Chicago run of "El Pasado" and the opera's upcoming San Diego and Houston performances.
"It's going to be fun being able to bring the stuff that I learned in Chicago back home to Texas," De la Cruz said. "It's a great honor to be able to be singing music that is written and arranged by Mr. Martinez. I can't wait to perform it in front of everybody."
“El Pasado Nunca se Termina” (“The Past is Never Finished”)
Location: Lyric Opera of Chicago's Lyric Unlimited initiative at three locales: With Mariachi Aztlán at Benito Juárez Community Academy, 1450-1510 W. Cermak Road in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, and at the Genesee Theatre, 203 N. Genesee St., Waukegan, (800) 982-2787 or
geneseetheatre.com; then with Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán at Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago, (312) 827-5600 or
lyricopera.org (for Chicago performances)
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 13; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 14; and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 15, in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood; 2 p.m. March 22 in Waukegan; 7:30 p.m. March 28 and 2 p.m. March 29 at Civic Opera House in Chicago. Performed in Spanish and English with projected translations.
Tickets: $10 in Pilsen; $10-$25 in Waukegan; $25-$125 at Chicago's Civic Opera House